Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a content management apparatus, and a content management method.
Description of the Related Art
Recently, network infrastructure development has improved the speed of network circuits, and a grid computing technology. According to the improvement, cloud computing systems have started to be spread as modes for managing document files and form data and performing various processes on server computer sides. A user accesses a web page in a cloud service from a browser of a client computer via the Internet, and can upload, download, display or share the document files or form data.
Some cloud services have a microblog function. The microblog function is one of communication services. Through the microblog function, a user having an account in the service can post a short message. Unique identifiers are assigned to the respective posts of users. Furthermore, a web page that is dedicated for a user and called a “timeline” displays posts by the user himself/herself, posts by users who the user “follows”, and posts to a group in which the user himself/herself participates. The display allows the user to follow another user and communicate via the group. Here, to “follow” is that the user registers another user for allowing posts by the other user to be displayed on the user's own web page. The “group” is a group of users classified according to common properties, such as participation organizations and projects of users. Posts to a group are displayed only on web pages by users participating in the group. The microblog services as described above include, for instance, Chatter by Salesforce.com.
In the foregoing document management service, cooperation with another service is important. Posting, to a microblog service, access URL information to a document and sharing information enables another user to be notified of presence of the document.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-213265 describes that a document creator individually assigns a signed access token to a viewer to thereby control access authorization for a document.
The cases of achieving a workflow through coordination of multiple services have increased. If the URL for a document registered in a document management service is shared by a microblog service, the document is sometimes intended to be viewed only by users participating in a specific group in the microblog service. However, the document management service and the microblog service are typically provided as different services, and have different security domains. That is, user management is performed separately in each service. There is thus a problem in that the document management service cannot achieve a configuration for allowing only users participating in the specific group in the microblog service to view the document.